When Everything Feels Important: How to Handle Competing Priorities

Summary: When everything feels important, knowing what to prioritize can feel impossible. In this article, you’ll learn why prioritizing is often harder than it seems, how expectations and “shoulds” can cloud your judgment, and simple ways to make more intentional choices about where your time and energy go.

One of the most common questions I hear from the women I work with is, “How can I know what to prioritize when everything feels important?”

We want to prioritize the things that really matter. To make sure we are giving our time and energy to the things that matter most.

But sometimes it feels like everything matters.

Your kids matter.
Your marriage matters.
Your health matters.
Your work matters.
Your friendships matter.
Rest matters.
You matter.

But there are only so many hours in the day and only so much of you to go around. (Not to mention all the little things that still have to get done—laundry, bills, cooking, that sort of thing.)

Figuring out where to spend your limited time and energy can leave you feeling constantly torn.

How to Know What to Prioritize

Sometimes the challenge isn’t just that there is a lot to do.

It’s that life gets so busy that many of us end up feeling a little disconnected from ourselves. Or like we’ve lost the ability to even know what we want to spend our time on.

We get so used to responding to everyone else’s needs, expectations, schedules, and demands that eventually it becomes difficult to know what we want, what we need, or what actually feels most important to us.

And it’s no wonder.

There are constant demands on our time and attention. People need things from us. Tasks pile up. Responsibilities keep coming. And most of them feel important.

So instead of making intentional choices, it can start to feel like we’re just reacting to whatever is the most urgent in that moment.

We’re just trying to stay on top of everything being thrown our way.

And when you’ve spent a long time living this way, figuring out what to prioritize can start to feel almost impossible.

That’s because prioritizing means that you have to know what matters most to you.

And that’s much harder to do when everyone else’s voices have gotten louder than your own.

There isn’t a perfect formula for knowing what to prioritize in every situation. It’s still something you’ll need to figure out each day. But here are a few things that can help when you find yourself pulled in too many directions.

Lesson #1: There’s No Such Thing as Balance

When people talk about “finding balance,” I think what they really mean is “figuring out how to fit everything into every day.” (I know I’ve tried for that kind of “balance” before.)

Like we’ve already talked about, there are a lot of things that we could see to on any given day. Family, work, health, chores, fun…

And somehow we want all of those things to get an equal slice of our attention all the time. Maybe in our minds the perfect day has a little bit of all of these things.

But that’s just not how life always works.

I remember attending a conference years ago where one of the speakers said something that has stuck with me ever since: “there is no such thing as balance.”

Wait, what?! But so many of us are out there chasing balance. What could she mean that there’s no such thing?

But she was right.

Realistically we can’t fit all the things in all the time. Instead, we’ve got to figure out each day what matters most for that day.

Some days a child genuinely needs more of your attention
Some days your own physical or emotional well-being needs to come first
Some days work is demanding
Some days rest is the most important thing on your list

The goal isn’t to give everything equal attention all the time. The goal is to figure out what matters most right now.

But that’s where many of us get stuck.

Because we’re often trying to determine what “should” matter most instead of what actually does.

Lesson #2: Not Every “Should” Deserves a Seat at the Table

Ah shoulds. Those pesky expectations we get in our mind about what we “should” be doing.

We know better. We really do. We know that “shoulds” don’t need to dictate our lives. The question is just how do you stop?

There is literally a constant barrage of information coming at us that changes the way we think about ourselves and the way we spend our time. And often this happens without us even realizing how much it’s impacting us.

There’s subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) messaging all around us that pressures the beliefs we have about our time.

I should volunteer
I should keep a cleaner house
I should answer that text right away
I should be able to get more done
I should be able to handle all of this
I should have more energy
I should be doing more

Before long, it becomes hard to tell the difference between what actually matters to us and what we simply feel obligated to do.

And many of us are trying to live according to an imagined version of our capacity rather than our actual capacity.

We’re making decisions based on what we think we should be able to do instead of what is realistically possible for us in this season of life.

And when we inevitably fall short of those expectations, we assume we’re doing something wrong.

Sometimes the most freeing thing we can do is put down a few of the shoulds.

When we stop trying to live up to every expectation and start paying attention to what genuinely matters in this moment, prioritizing becomes a whole lot clearer.

Lesson #3: Remember That You Get a Vote

One of the things that help the most is remembering that you get a vote in your own life.

Here’s an example from my life:

A while back my kids had a day off from school and I spent most of the day doing things with and for them.

I took one son fishing. I went to the gym with another. I gave haircuts.

My entire day was filled with kid stuff.

And I was genuinely glad to spend that time with them.

But I also had a long list of work projects and personal goals that didn’t happen that day.

And at the end of the day I felt frustrated that I didn’t fit it all in (see Lesson #1).

And also I felt some resentment because it started to feel like I never have time for the things that matter to me.

But when I step back, I remember something important:

I made that choice to spend time doing things with and for my kids.

Not because I had to. Because I wanted to.

I value being involved in my kids’ lives.

That doesn’t mean it was easy. It doesn’t mean there weren’t tradeoffs. But it does mean the choice was mine.

Sometimes we feel trapped by our priorities because we’ve forgotten that we have agency.

We may not have unlimited freedom and we may not love every option available to us.

But most of us have more choice than we think we do.

And when we remember that we get a vote, prioritizing starts to feel less like something happening to us and more like something we’re actively choosing.

How to Figure Out Your Priorities

The truth is, there will probably always be more good things competing for your time than you can possibly fit into your life all at once.

That’s just part of being a person who cares deeply about the people and things in your life.

Remember: the goal isn’t to perfectly balance every priority.

The goal is to learn how to make intentional choices about where your time and energy go.

To recognize when you’ve lost yourself in everyone else’s expectations.

To let go of a few of the shoulds.

And to remember that your own voice deserves a seat at the table too.

Because when you know what matters to you, and when you trust yourself enough to choose that, even in small ways, prioritizing becomes a whole lot clearer.

When Everything Feels Important

If reading this has you realizing that you’ve spent a long time putting everyone else’s needs, expectations, and priorities ahead of your own, you’re not alone.

It’s one of the most common struggles I see in women.

And it’s one of the reasons I created A Lighter Load.

Because the challenge isn’t usually just having too much to do.

It’s carrying the weight of everyone and everything all at once while slowly losing sight of yourself in the process.

A Lighter Load is a short audio series designed to help you step back from the noise, reconnect with what matters most, and create more space for the things that genuinely deserve your time and energy.

You can learn more about it here.